Boosting A Protein May Clear Dementia-Linked Plaques 'Like A Vacuum Cleaner'

Though we don’t yet fully understand what causes dementia, many scientists think that the build-up of “amyloid plaques” and “tau tangles” in the brain can be a precursor to Alzheimer’s. This seems to happen when deposits of the two proteins grow around brain cells. And according to recent research published in Nature Neuroscience, another protein – Sox9 – could be responsible for clearing them. Speaking to Baylor University, study co-author Dr Benjamin Deneen said that increasing levels of the protein, which “regulates astrocyte functions during ageing”, helped to clear plaques “from the brain like a vacuum cleaner” in mice.Why might the protein help to boost dementia defences? In this study, it appeared to have a knock-on effect on star-shaped cells in the brain called astrocytes.First author Dr Dong-Joo Choi said: “Astrocytes perform diverse tasks that are essential for normal brain function, including facilitating brain communications and memory storage.“As the brain ages, astrocytes show profound functional alterations; however, the role these alterations play in ageing and neurodegeneration is not yet understood.” So, the researchers “manipulated the expression of the Sox9 gene to assess its role in maintaining astrocyte function in the ageing brain and in Alzheimer’s disease models,” Dr Deneen explained. They took mice, which had already developed cognitive issues like memory loss and had amyloid plaque build-up in their brains, and either reduced or increased their Sox9 levels. After monitoring and testing the cognitive strength of the mice for six months, the researchers looked at their amyloid plaque levels. While removing Sox9 expression was linked to increased plaque buildup, perhaps due to the decreased complexity of astrocyte cells linked to the change, overexpressing it seemed to increase the clearing power of the cells while also yielding better cognitive test results. “We found that increasing Sox9 expression triggered astrocytes to ingest more amyloid plaques, clearing them from the brain like a vacuum cleaner,” Dr Deneen stated.“Most current treatments focus on neurons or try to prevent the formation of amyloid plaques. This study suggests that enhancing astrocytes’ natural ability to clean up could be just as important.”What does this research mean? So far, the researchers caution that we’ll need a lot more research to work out what this means for humans. But Dr Choi said, “An important point of our experimental design is that we worked with mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease that had already developed cognitive impairment, such as memory deficits, and had amyloid plaques in the brain.“We believe these models are more relevant to what we see in many patients with Alzheimer’s disease symptoms than other models in which these types of experiments are conducted before the plaques form.”Related...Signs That You're In 'Time Poverty' (And The Impacts On Dementia Risk)Can Resetting Your Body Clock Help Prevent Dementia?Over-70s With This Hobby May Be 39% Less Likely To Develop Dementia

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